Cemeteries are running out of room

It comes as predictions suggest cemeteries in Sydney will become full within the next decade with some faith groups facing acute shortages in the next five years.

There were 190,775 deaths registered in 2022, an increase of 19,306 from 2021 (171,469), according to the ABS.

To tackle the shortage, Macarthur Memorial Park, a 113-hectare site in Sydney's southwest, will open in February 2025.

It will be the first Crown cemetery to be built in Sydney in more than 80 years.

Researcher Dr Kate Falconer said Sydney was "kind of Ground Zero for this issue".

Melbourne and Brisbane were not too far behind, Dr Falconer said.

Cemeteries across Australia are managed by state governments and local councils and some are controlled privately or owned by churches and trusts. Australian war graves are managed by a federal government agency, with plots around the world.

"There is a real reluctance to build new cemeteries," Dr Falconer said.

"Old cemeteries are beautiful and historic and we love them and they speak to our history.

"New cemeteries are places of death and they're sad and people don't necessarily want a new cemetery just down the road from them."

Australasian Cemeteries and Crematoria Association (ACCA) acknowledged that burial space was an issue in some cemeteries, particularly in major cities, but said it was not necessarily a nation-wide problem.

"Historically we've had this expectation, that's generally been able to be met, that once we die we could be buried in a cemetery not too far from where we lived," ACCA chief exec Chris Harrington said.

"With the population growing in these [major city] areas, it goes without saying that whilst there are still some burial spaces available, in the years to come it may not be as close to where you lived."

With Australia expected to more than double its death count by 2070, cemeteries are looking to plan for a sustainable future.

Finding space for cemeteries was an age-old issue that dated back centuries.

Sydney's first cemetery, where Town Hall now sits, was used for only 27 years before becoming full in 1820. A new site had to be set aside, where Sydney's Central Railway Station now stands.

In some states, grave sites remain in perpetuity.

In NSW, Queensland and Tasmania that is the default option while in Victoria and the ACT, it is mandatory.

In Western Australia and South Australia, burial plots are held under a renewable tenure, meaning they are allocated for a fixed period of time.

To tackle the shortage, 'renewal cemeteries' or 'renewable tenure' is recommended by some advocates.

"It is the most viable solution to the cemetery space crisis," Dr Falconer said.

In South Australia, renewable tenure is the norm. Residents choose 50 year minimums for burial and 30 year minimums for cremation spots. After that families could renew the plot or the grave may be reused.

Karrakatta cemetery in the western suburbs of Perth is now technically full, with no additional land available to expand the cemetery.

The cemetery practices 'cemetery renewal', using unused space between existing graves and land that was previously used as pathways to accommodate new gravesites.

"The cemetery would have closed if we hadn't been able to do the renewal," Metropolitan Cemeteries Board chief exec Kathlene Oliver said.

"[After] a cemetery [closes] it falls into further states of disrepair".

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"We do not remove anyone's remains ... as a result of the renewal program other than their headstone or monument is removed from the surface," she said.

"We expect that we have enough remaining areas for renewal to provide tenure up till 2045," Ms Oliver said.

"We then have to think about what to do. Do we start to renew the graves, the original graves, and go and actually disturb those remains or not? At this point, that's our least palatable option."